Wood in grills

If you’re firing up the grill for a late summer get together, think wood.

Give your guests a gastronomic thrill with wood as your fuel. It will impart a lovely flavor to your chops and steaks. It’s not too hard to find wood planks or the smaller chips or blocks at your local store that you can use along with your typical charcoal or gas grill. In fact there is a cedar paper you can wrap around your seafood or veggies for that extra “je ne c’est qua”. If you want to go the chips route, soak them in water for 30 minutes or so before you start to grill and then just drop them on the charcoal embers or in your gas grill’s smoker box (or in an aluminum foil pocket with some punched holes so the smoke can escape).

For the larger wood chunks, just use them dry in place of the charcoal. If you like the idea of wood cooking, invest in a chimney starter that will jump start your two inch square blocks and they will be ready for cooking in a quarter of an hour.

Then there are planks. Just put your fish on some large cedar planks that have been soaked in water for over an hour and then pop them on the grill.